Failing the third toilet test: Reflections on fieldwork, gender and Indian loos

Abstract

This article reexamines the long-standing corridor topic of toilet facilities in anthropological fieldwork, arguing that their condition has stronger methodological implications than previously acknowledged. Drawing on personal experiences from three successive fieldworks in one of India’s poorest states – Uttar Pradesh – it reflects on the importance of gender, age, and prior experience with unfamiliar sanitary facilities in shaping our adjustment to the conditions we meet in the field. It narrates the three ‘toilet tests’ to which the author has been exposed over a series of field visits: the transition to water, squatting, and ultimately the lack of privacy. Failing the latter, she had to shelve a promising fieldwork lead. Scaling up, the article suggests that, if field sites with ‘difficult’ toilet conditions attract fewer and differently positioned anthropologists, the result is likely to be a bias in coverage and theory-building that merits more reflection.